
MEADE 





TO THE FAMILY 

OF 


OTXR DEPARTED MASTER, 

THE REV. DH. I. M. WISE, 

THIS HUMBLE TRIBUTE 
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
BY HIS PUPIL, 

Joseph Krauskopf. 




ISAAC M. WISE 

Born April 3rd, 1819. 
Died March 26th, 1900. 


ISAAC M. WISE 

(Died March 26th, 1900) 


H Memorial tribute 


Before the Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, 

April 1 st, 1900, 


Rabbi JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF, D. D. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

TRESS OF S. w. GOODMAN, NO. Il6 NORTH THIRD STREET. 



* 



UK EXCHANGE. 



DEC 6 190b 








































* * i 







































Isaac M. Wise— A Memorial Tribute 

BEFORE THE 

Reform Congregation Keneseth Israee, 

BY 

Rabbi JOS. KRAUSKOPF, D. D. 

Philadelphia, April ist, 1900. 


“ And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ; aud 
they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. ” Daniel xii, 3. 


It is from a sorrowful journey that I have just returned. The 
dust of the tomb is still upon my feet. The sound of weeping is still 
within my ears. The gloom of death still fills my heart. 

The suddenness and the sadness of the news of Dr. Wise’s Unfit for speech 
going home, and the hurrying to a city clad in mourning, 
and to a shrine in which lay wrapt in eternal sleep he, who for a quarter 
of a century had been to me the type and model of all that is great in 
goodness, and good in greatness, and the hastening back to a congrega- 
tion swayed by sorrow over the loss of him, who had been its friend and 
champion throughout the more than half a century of its existence, 
whose very Sanctuary in which it now worships was consecrated by him, 
9.nd whose honored guest he has but so recently been, — all these have 
awakened emotions that fit me more for silence than for speech. 

And well might I have been silent this , morning, and you not have 
missed anything, for where the public voice has spoken so well, so loud, 
and so universal, there is nothing that I could add that , , . 

could make the greatness of our sainted dead greater, or since public voice 
that could make your sorrow less. Well could I afford to be s P oken so 
silent to-day when a whole Nation mourns. From out the 
midst of a stricken family, from out a weeping congregation, from out a 
mourning city, the sad word flashed across the continent that the voice of 
the great teacher, at whose feet the thousands sat, and from whose lips whole 
peoples drank their faith andjhope, is silent, and silent forever. And the 
columns of obituaries that fill the press, and the eloquent eulogies that 
are being delivered in hundreds of synagogues and churches, wherever 
loving hearts beat and sympathetic bosoms heave, «wherever rationalism 
in religion is prized and religion in rationalism is cherished all, all de- 
clare that not local, not sectional, not denominational, is the loss of the 
venerable Rabbi of Cincinnati. 

A whole Nation is cast in sorrow. The Bast and the West mourn 
with* the South and the North, the Gentile with the Jew. A brilliant 


4 


star that has shone so long, so cheeringly, has been sud- 
Dr ’ ^ se ’fj death denl y extinguished in the firmament. Death has wrested 
the sword from a valiant leader, has forced him to surren- 
der, whom more than fifty years of leadership, and well-nigh endless 
struggles and fiercest opposition could never teach that word. Cold and 
lifeless now, is that heart that but a week ago was still so warm and so 
full of life and cheer. At rest is that brilliant mind that had soared into 
heights and penetrated into depths rarely reached before. Closed is the 
eye once so luminous with the light of the kindliest soul that ever took 
up its abode within human frame. Hushed are the lips on whose accents 
the thousands hung with transport, and which influenced the masses for 
good ‘ ‘ like the spell of a mighty enchanter. ’ ’ Flown is the spirit through 
which ‘ ‘ nature gave utterance to the full diapason of her notes. ’ ’ The 
mighty pen has fallen from his hand, and there is no one to complete the 
volume, and therefore, does American Israel weep. The leader has been 
stricken down within sight of the promised land, and there is no Joshua 
to lead the army across the Jordan, and, therefore, does Progress mourn. 
The most honored of her citizens has been taken from her, and, there- 
fore, is Cincinnati draped in black. The most progressive of preachers 
has, without a note of warning, been summoned from his long sphere of 
noble usefulness, and therefore is Congregation B’nai Yeshurun desolate. 
The most loving and gentle and patient of husbands and fathers has been 
taken forever from his family-circle, and therefore are its members in- 
consolable. — God grant that they may find relief in the solacing thought 
that their grief is all Israel’s grief, their loss a whole people’s loss. 

And to none, outside of his family circle, is the death of Dr. I. M. Wise 

a greater personal loss than to me. And it is because of this that I speak. 

I must give utterance to my sorrow, here within my own 

And a personal spiritual household, for thus alone shall I find relief. It 
loss to me. , .. . _ , . 

was not the ordinary tie of master and disciple that, for a 

quarter of a century, linked American Israel’s greatest leader and me, his 
humble pupil and follower, into a bond that was as adamantine as it was 
sacred. It was a bond like unto that which links a father to his son. 
From the first time that we met, until the last time that we saw each 
other, last June, at his country seat, in the suburbs of Cincinnati, I have 
never been in his presence but that I felt that his friendship for me was 
one of the greatest blessings Heaven had vouchsafed unto me. From 
that day of our first meeting there has been one ambition that has swayed 
me more than any other: the desire to prove myself worthy of his price- 
less friendship, of the education he gave me, of the hope he reposed in 
me. 

To him more than to any one else do I owe it that I am your 
spiritual leader to-day. What little I have done is all of his doing and 
shaping. And were Heaven to grant me in the future 
m he iife° Ulder ° f t ^ ie & reatest victories that have yet been won by man, 
they would all be his, none of them mine. P'or he it was 
who taught me the love of Judaism and, the yet greater love of humanity. 


5 


He it was who, in class-room and private converse, pointed out to me the 
possibility of Israel, and opened to me the way of Reform on which pos- 
sibility might be turned into reality. He it was who, by precept and ex- 
ample, taught me how to work and how to love it, and how he made it 
tell in the furtherance of the common good. And the lessons how to 
face and conquer difficulties, how to bear calumny and intrigue, the bit- 
terness of enemies and the treachery of friends, the pettiness of the great 
and the envies of the small, how to persevere despite crushing defeat, how 
to labor on, and battle on, and hope on, though all desert and all deride, 
these and a hundred other lessons, he taught by word of mouth, and 
more forcibly still by personal example, and in a manner that was as 
easy to learn as it is difficult to forget. 

No one could live near him, and work under him, and not catch his 
spirit and his zeal. There was an earnestness in him, and a working- 
power that was contagious, that shamed the idler and the 

dreamer into doin°*. His prophetic mind had recognized And of the tile 

• f • i j -d x. • \ • a 8 r 4-t, ’ of oth ers. 

in far-away, inland Bohemia, two years in advance of the 

revolutionary spirit of 1848 which swept all Europe, that Israel’s long- 
denied and long-awaited opportunity had dawned at last in distant 
America. And hither he hastened, and here he entered upon the hercu- 
lean labors of restoring Israel to itself and to the sisterhood of religions, 
with a vigor that has probably never been equalled in the whole history 
of Israel, and that not only continued unabated for more than half a 
century, but even increased with the increase of his years. If death 
thought that, by selecting for the fatal blow a Sabbath afternoon of a 
life of more than four score years, it might find the sage of Cincinnati 
at leisure to die, it soon recognized that it had entirely mistaken its man, 
for, even then, even though it was the Sabbath, even though on the eve 
of his eighty-first birthday, even though he had preached a vigorous 
sermon on the forenoon of that day, it found him on that afternoon ac- 
tively at work at the Hebrew Union College, teaching a class in the Phil- 
osophy of Judaism. 

And that long life-work has been a work that has told. The History 

of American Judaism during the past half a century has been largely the 

biography of the Rev. Dr. I. M. Wise. His w r as the pro- History of Amer- 

phecy, and his the labor that the center of rational Juda- } can , Israel of 
^ J , , , last half century 

ism was transplanted from European lands to our shores, a biography of 

His was the labor and his is the credit that the Jew enjoys Dr ' Wlse - 

to-day within the United States a golden age unequalled in any prior age, 

or in any other land. His one mind set a thousand minds to work. His 

one voice made a thousand tongues eloquent. His one pen kept thousands 

of pens and hundreds of presses busy. His intense love of rational 

Judaism, and his zealous advocacy of it, his bitter hatred and his 

fearless denunciation of every misrepresentation of it, arrayed Israel 

everywhere in opposing battle lines, and whether they agreed or whether 

they opposed, whether they defended or whether they attacked, whether 

they believed or whether they denied, whether they blessed or whether 


6 


they cursed, there was no resting where he was at work, no standstill, 
no stagnation, no retrogression where he progressed. Even if but to op- 
pose him, they, too, had to work, and the bitterer their opposition, the 
harder their work; and the greater their contention, the further was their 
advance. 

Amid the all-encircling gloom, amid the general sorrow, which the 
death of the Rev. Dr. I. M. Wise has spread throughout our land, and 
beyond its borders, the remembrance that he, whose 
compensation for praise is to-day so loudly sung by all American Israel, was 
past persecution. f or man y } man y years the most bitterly attacked, the 
remembrance that his passionate love of Judaism was long and cruelly 
misjudged, his noble motives long and heartlessly aspersed, — these re- 
membrances lose to-day much of their former asperity. And it did not 
even require the all-reconciling hand of death to allay these intensely bitter 
feelings of former times. For many years prior to his death, he was 
spared those cruel attacks of fanaticism and envy, the heaping of which 
upon the arch-heretic Wise had formerly been regarded almost a religious 
duty. 

Time brought to the erstwhile opposition the judgment and vision 
which reason had utterly failed to bring. The experience of years con- 
vinced where argument had failed. The newer genera- 
Second genera- . ... - .... 

tion rendered the tion, looking from the heights toward which he had 
had'den^ed. first single-handed hewn and cleared the way, saw and felt 
what he had done, and poured out its gratitude at his 
feet. Unlike the Egyptian king, when the new generation arose it recog- 
nized and gratefully acknowledged what Joseph had done, and was doing 
still. The justice that many of his earlier contemporaries could not or 
would not do, the second and third generation did freely, and with joy- 
ful heart. The sons loved where their fathers hated; the daughters 
adopted what their mothers rejected; the grandchildren revered what 
their grandparents reviled. Not being warped by rivalry, they could 
afford to be just. 

Those who had had their life-struggle by his side, could never for- 
give his having seen what their narrower vision could not grasp, or his 
Dr wise erse h av i n g done what their feebler power could not attempt, 
cuted because a His greatest glory and at the same time his greatest guilt 
was his having dared to 'come unasked, his having en- 
tered upon his work unbidden. But that has been the glory and guilt of 
all great reformers. No processional ever went forth to greet any of 
them. They had to force their way into the minds and hearts of the 
people. Their every step forward marks a struggle, their every day’s 
journey is a history of heroic daring and of cruel suffering; their every 
effort for the eradication of error, for the righting of wrong, calls forth 
the charge: Disturber of the Peace! Destroyer of the People’s Faith! 
Sensationalist! Notoriety-Seeker! Columbus, in their eye, is but a 
Charlatan, a Fortune-Hunter; Luther, an overthrower of a Pope to 
make himself a Pope; Washington and Lincoln are but revolutionists for 


7 


wholly selfish ends. Wherever Providence feels the need of reforms, 
they say, it is perfectly able to introduce them, without the meddling of 
self-styled reformers. 

But, Providence has never yet brought about a single reform without 
having called forth the reformer to introduce it. When it had a Decalogue to 
promulgate it produced a Moses. When it wanted knowl- 
edge to be diffused among the masses it called forth a Such the fate of 
Gutenberg. When it wanted religious liberty and human 
rights to be written in the hearts of men and upon the statute book of 
nations it brought a Jefferson, a Bessing into being. When it wanted 
Judaism to be made attractive and intelligible to both Jew and Non-Jew 
it issued a summons to a Maimonides, a Mendelsohn, a Wise. And when 
such summons comes, the summoned can as little help obeying it as 
their reform can help taking root. And be the time never so unpropi- 
tious, and the welcome never so hostile, they can as little'be held back as 
the early sprout can help obeying the call of spring. What care such 
men for contumely, for persecution! Their very dungeon-darkness is 
brightness to them, their taunt is praise to them, their crown of thorns is 
a laurel wreath. Their being'driven from the Temple of God is an hegira 
that leads to a Mecca, a path that leads, as in the case of Dr. Wise, from 
Albany to Cincinnati, and from Cincinnati to all the world. 

What if Dr. Wise had waited till asked with doing the work so ur- 
gently needed, what if he had sat looking at the clock, straining eye and 

ear for the hour that would bid him enter upon the work 

. „ , . Had Dr. Wise 

of reform ? He might have sat until the last day of his feared persecu- 

life, and awaited his summons in vain. 

It is true, while idly waiting, he would have been spared, well-nigh 
endless struggles and miseries from without, but he would have suffered 
infinitely greater grief within, at seeing progress pressing more and more 
rapidly forward, and Judaism lagging more and more anachronistically 
behind. He belonged to that small yet mighty body of men, who, when 
work is to be done in the interest of humanity, never stop to consider 
how vast the enemy arrayed against them, how sharp the point of the 
bayonet, how hot the flame of the fagot, how excruciating the torture of 
the rack. They but see the duty they are divinely sent to do, and they 
press forward to do it, and do it, even against a world in arms. And 
though a thousand times crushed, they rise a thousand times and fight 
on and on, till victory is theirs. 

It is true, had he shut eye and ear to the need of the hour, he might 
have been patted on the shoulder by the advocates of standstill, and, by 
spending his time on rethrashing old thrashed-out straw, He might have 
he might even have been proclaimed an erudite scholar, gained favor 
and, by ranting and raving over Israel’s past glory, with- of obscurants » 
out rendering the slightest service to prevent its present stagnation and 
future shame, he might have been regarded a safe man to follow, or 
rather, harmless enough to be orthodoxically and conservatively left 
alone. 


8 


But, as a consequence, we might have had to-day dozens upon dozens 
of Jewish agnostic societies, under Jewish leaderships, thousands, tens of 
thousands of Jews in whose heart empty ceremonialism 
America might and barren legalism, falsely labelled Judaism, had crushed 

exdnct een out ever y spark of religion, every interest and pride in 

Israel’s sacred heritage. Where we find one ceremonially 
orthodox synagogue, but now disbanded or deserted, we would, but 
for Dr. Wise’s work, have found dozens. There would not have been 
a trace of that enthusiasm that to-day builds and fills synagogues in 
every part of the land, that, to-day, sends Jewish young men, imbued by 
their master with all the ardor of the prophets of old, to the North and 
South, to the Bast and West, to restore ,what obsolete orientalism had 
caused to crumble and fall, to plant anew what indifference and unbelief 
had trodden down, to quicken and revive what petrifying formalism had 
well-nigh killed, to make the name of Jew an honor instead of a shame, 
and his synagogue a place of worship, to be sought for modern light and 
ancient truth almost as much by the Non- Jew as by the Jew. 

This was the vision that filled Dr. Wise’s prophetic eye upon his 
landing on our shores more than fifty years ago, and therefore stepped he 
into the public arena unasked, unbidden, and utterly 
to^i^courage.' fearless of consequences. Cries of Halt! cries of Down! 

he heard enough, but he had no time to obey them. He 
had work to do, and he hurried to do it. He had wrongs to right, and 
he hurried to right them. And he succeeded in what he started out to 
achieve. The very stars in the heaven fought for him. The everlasting 
arms of God were around him. 

He coerced destiny; he forced time. As Patrick Henry hastened the 

progress of American Independence, and Savanarola hastened that of the 

The few fol- Reformation, by a century or two, so did Dr. Wise hasten 

lowers at the the American Jew’s Self-Emancipation, probably by the 
beginning com- , , . . . , , . 

pared with the same length of time. Once his voice was heard, and its echo 

many at the end. never Once his blow was felt, and its thrust never 

ceased smarting. His voice first grated on the ears of his unwilling 
listeners, but constant repetition turned it into pleasant music. His 
society was shunned at first, but perseverance brought him a host of fol- 
lowers at last. Courage sires courage. Martyrdom begets martyrdom. 
As with Euther, whom but few followed when he proceeded to nail his 
ninety-five thesis on the church door, but whom great throngs of sympa- 
thizing and co-operating friends and admirers and disciples followed to 
his trial for life, before the Imperial and Papal Court at Worms, so but 
few followed Dr. Wise when, in 1850, because of his reform utterances, he 
was brutally assaulted in his pulpit, and driven from his synagogue at 
Albany, but vast were the throngs of followers who, on Thursday last, 
filled his great Temple of Cincinnati, and whole squares outside of it, 
where they stood for hours, many of them bare-headed, in the rain, while 
the last sad rites were being conducted within, while even the belfries of 
Christian Churches tolled the funeral knells, while even the loud noise of 


9 


the busy business world fell under the spell of the great sorrow that per- 
vaded the city, and for several hours continued hushed behind closed 
doors. 

Yes, he had his reward, and in his life-time as well as at his death. 
Who that was present at that funeral, and listened with his inner as well 
as his outer ear, did not as distinctly hear the jubilant D th d f 
note of exultation as the tearful sounds of sorrow, sorrow him an immortal 
that so blessed a life had ended, exultation that it had aud a Samt - 
been so richly blessed in life and in death ? Who that saw the hundreds 
of messages of sorrow and condolence that came from all parts of the 
country, even from some of his former bitterest opponents, who that saw 
the half a hundred Rabbis that had hastened from their busy fields to pay 
their last sad tribute of respect to their fallen leader, who that saw the 
delegations of laymen that had come from different sections of our 
land to tell of the national mourning, who that saw all this, or hears or 
reads of it, can even but for one minute doubt that another niche has been 
filled in the Temple of Immortal Fame, that another star has been added 
to the galaxy of Israel’s great Immortals, that another Saint has been 
canonized and enshrined in the human heart ? 

And who that looked upon that face — not dead but simply wrapped 

in peaceful slumber, not dead but simply resting from a very long life of 

very hard labor — did not take with that look the inspira- 
. . , , . , His last message 

tion to continue, even though it be with infinitely feebler to his disciples 

power, the work where he left off ? Who that gazed upon and followers - 

that simple pine-board coffin did not feel that for the one mind therein 

asleep a hundred others will awaken, for the one voice silent a hundred 

voices will lift up their speech, for the one hand resting a hundred hands 

will take up the pen and the sword, the pick and the axe, the trowel and 

the plane, and push forward the Temple of God, on which he had labored 

so faithfully and so well ? 

And who that listened with his soul in that hour of tearful silence did 
not hear the departed teacher say: xjn’Kp Dnm ’“taDrD ,( 7 DTIX “ Speak 
thou zealously of me and of my work, for where thou standest I once 
stood, and as I once labored do thou labor now. The work has but begun; 
the Temple of God is far from completion; it is but the foundation that 
has been laid, hardly that. If thou wilt not labor, all my labor will have 
been in vain. If thou wilt not carry the work forward the walls that I 
have reared will crumble and fall, and in the ruins the foxes and jackals 
will again take up their lodgments. Not yet has the time come for casting 
aside the implement of toil and the weapon of defense. The enemy from 
within and from without is active still, more eager and more watchful now 
than ever. If thou art idle, he will toil; if thou art indifferent he will be 
zealous; and his will be the victory and thine the rout.” 

‘‘Labor for Judaism. Its hour has come. In the struggle of the 
world’s religions it has proven itself the survival of the fittest. Its rational 
creed is in consonance with the spirit of the times. Make it known to all 
the world, proclaim it and spread it, preach it and teach it. Only in 


/ 


to 


His special 
message to us. 


making rational Judaism known wilt thou make the Jew known and 
appreciated. ’ ’ 

“ Labor for the Hebrew Union College. Strengthen it educationally 
and financially. It is the Palladium of thy liberties and rights, of thy 
hopes and ideals. From it alone can thy Messiahs go forth. Guard it as 
the most sacred treasure of American Israel. Let it be holy unto thee, if 
thy faith and history are holy unto thee. For only in its flourishing shalt 
thou flourish; only in its strength shalt thou be strong.” 

These words I felt especially addressed to you, Reform Congregation 
Keneseth Israel, and to me, — to you, because the laurel wreath which you 
sent, was, excepting that of the family, the only floral 
tribute of respect upon the coffin, when taken to its last 
resting place; to me, because the last sermon our 
lamented departed preached in his Temple, on the last Sabbath of his life, 
was on the same text and theme, the same title and thought, which I, his 
pupil, had selected, and upon which I preached in my own Temple, on 
the same Sabbath forenoon. To me, at the side of my master’s coffin, it 
seemed more than a mere coincidence. The likeness of thought and 
teaching between master and pupil on that memorable Sabbath forenoon, 
seemed to me a charge for future likeness of work, a command to the pupil 
to use the knowledge and the spirit the master had imparted in the carry- 
ing forward of the master’s work. 

Let us obey that behest, — you, who more than half a century ago, in 
the very year when the Rev. Dr. I. M. Wise entered upon his work of 
, , reform, dedicated yourselves to Reform Judaism, and re- 
dead will con- ceived your consecration in it by those other noble and 
wiflT the & living scholarly champions of Reform, the Rev. Dr. David Ein- 
horn and the Rev. Dr. Samuel Hirsch; and I who, seven- 
teen years ago, after eight years of study under his guidance, was or- 
dained by our departed master in the spirit and for the work of reform, 
I, who last June, when with him, at the occasion of the last graduation 
of the Hebrew Union College, received from his lips, as his last benedic- 
tion and message to me, the words: “God bless you! Go on with the 
good work! Go on with the good work!” he waving his cap in fare- 
well to me, from the gate of his country-home, as long as we 
both were in sight of each other. Yes, let us obey that behest, you and 
I. Let us labor together in his spirit and with his zeal in the cause to 
which he gave his all, and which he has bequeathed to all. Even though 
dead, his spirit will be with us, for such spirits as his never die. If we 
shall battle in the holy cause his sword will battle on our side, and win 
proud victories for us. As in that beautiful painting of Kaulbach, which 
shows the spirits of the heroes, slain on the battle field, rising in the air, 
and from above, with sword in hand, urging the living and dispirited on 
to renewed efforts, and fighting mightily on their side till victory is 
theirs, so will the spirit of our departed teacher and leader urge us on, 
and battle on our side, till the final victory will be ours, till truth and 


It 


justice shall have triumphed, till the Jew shall stand in the full panoply 
of his manhood, a child of God, the brother of man. 

It was in the beautiful sunset hour of Monday last, March 26th, in 
the spring month at the threshold of the new century that the spirit 
of the Rev. Dr. I. M. Wise winged its flight, just as 
he had wished it, from the rD’BP to the hvt HTBP triumph, till 

ntyD, “from the academy below to the Academy Above.” WlU be 

The western sky was all aglow with the radiance of the 
sunset glory, and streamed its yellow and crimson light upon the face of 
the dying Patriarch. Not a sound was heard in the chamber in which 
our master softly breathed his last. Every heart was awed, every head 
bowed, every foot and tongue silenced under the spell of that celestial 
light and glow. The room was full of music, and yet not a sound was 
heard. It was a bit of heaven transplanted upon earth to comfort the 
remaining with a glimpse of the realm opening to the departing. Athwart 
that sky were written the words of Hope, Promise, Victory. This was 
the last glimpse our master caught of the slowly receding earth, the 
Hope and Promise of Victory for Israel and Humanity. 

That last vision of hope and promise will not deceive. There will be 
victory for Israel and Humanity. Our master’s Life-Hope “ Yet Truth 
Will Triumph!" and his weekly battle-cry, for nearly half a century, at 
the head of “ The American Israelite ,” TX 'TP “ Let there be Light ,” 
will be realized. Truth will Triumph. There will be Light. 


RESOLUTIONS 

By The Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel. 


At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of Reform Con- 
gregation Keneseth Israel of Philadelphia, at which the 
death of the Rev. Dr. Isaac M. Wise was announced and 
was received with profoundest sorrow, the following Resolu- 
tions were unanimously adopted : 

Resolved , That American Israel mourns in the death of the Rev. Dr. 
Isaac M. Wise the loss of its learned and enthusiastic leader, its founder 
and preserver, its bravest champion and ablest expounder. 

Resolved , That by the profound sorrow and by the sense of personal 
loss which pervade the Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel of Phila- 
delphia, it fully appreciates the immeasurable loss his own family and 
Congregation and city and the whole country have sustained. 

Resolved, That, while the Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel rec- 
ognizes its inability to say the word or do the deed that shall comfort the 
stricken family, the bereaved Congregation, the orphaned Hebrew Union 
College, the leaderless Central Conference of American Rabbis, it will 
endeavor to assuage it's own grief by holding in continued sacred remem- 
brance the Rev. Dr. Isaac M. Wise’s heroic deeds and noble self-sacri- 
fices for the cause of Judaism and the Jew. 

Resolved , That the Reform principles to which the Rev. Dr. Isaac M. 
Wise gave all his life, and for which he fought his ablest battles, and won 
his greatest victories, shall be fostered even more sacredly than ever in 
this congregation, that was dedicated to Reform more than half a century 
ago, and in this Temple that had been consecrated by him, and in which 
his beloved pupil, our esteemed Rabbi, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Krauskopf, 
ministers. j- 

Resolved , That Congregation Keneseth Israel recognizes a greater 
need than ever for the cherishing and strengthening of Reform Judaism, 
and that it therefore pledges its heartiest support to the Hebrew Union 
College, to the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and to all the 
other causes created and advocated and cherished by our departed leader. 

Resolved , That its Rabbi, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Krauskopf, be dele- 
gated to represent the Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel at the last 
rites of our deeply lamented teacher, and that he take with him, and 
deposit upon the coffin, a laurel wreath as a tribute of the Congregation’s 
appreciation and sorrow. 

Resolved , That a suitable Memorial of the Rev. Dr. Isaac M. Wise be 
placed in the Temple of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel; that each 
anniversary of his death be fittingly commemorated in the services of the 
Congregation; that a copy of these Resolutions, suitably engrossed, be 
presented to the family of the deceased, and published in the “American 
Israelite” of Cincinnati, “The Jewish Exponent” and “The Weekly Bul- 
letin ” of Philadelphia, and recorded on the minutes of the Congregation. 

By order of the Board of Trustees, 

DANIEU MERZ, President. 

EUIAS BRAUNSCHWEIG, Secretary. 


March 27th, 1900. 


Sunday Lectures by Rabbis Krauskopf and Levy. 


SERIES XIII. 

Rabbi Jos. Krauskopf, D. D. 

i. “ The Choir Invisible.” 

3. The Tragedy of the Jew. 

5. Ancient Ideals and their Ruins 

7. The Passion Play at Polna. 

9. Chanukah Tights and the Christmas Tree 

12. The Will and the Way. 

Society and Its Morals. 

14. fcl . — Individual Morality. 

16. II. — Domestic Morality. 

18. III.— Social Morality. 

20. IV. — Sectarian Morality. 

22. V. — National Morality. 

24. VI. — Racial Morality. 

26. VII. — International Morality. 

28 Isaac M. Wise — A Memorial Tribute. 


SERIES XII. 

Rabbi Jos. Krauskopf, D. D. 

2. What is Truth ? 

4. The Gospel of Joy. 

6. The Gospel of Sorrow. 

8. The Gospel of Good-Will, 

io. The Sunset of Life. 

12. Old Memories and New Hopes. 

14. The Sunday- Sabbath. 

id. 44 Test we Forget— Test we Forget ” — 

In Memoriam. 

18. Ninetieth Birthday of Lincoln and Darwin 

20. The Voice that Calleth in the Wilderness 

21. 44 Turning Parents and Children Toward 

Bach Other.’’ 

24. Israel-Weak, And Yet Strong-(Joel iv, 10) 
26. Cyrano de Bergerac — The Story of the J ew 
28. Jeffersonian Simplicity — Responsibility of 


1899—1900. 

Rabbi J. Leonard Levy. 

2. •* New Tamps for Old Ones or 

(The Children of the Ghetto.) 

4. The Jew and the Gentile. 

6. The Truth. 

8. Home Tife among the Jews. 

10. Israel’s Immortals, 
xi. 41 Onward and Upward.” 

13. The Sin Against Tove. 
ig>. A Fool’s Paradise. 

17. 44 Togic taught by Tove.” 

19. The Jew and the Synagogue. 

21. Woman, A Purim Sermon. 

23. Man’s Inhumanity to Man. 

25 - 

27. 


1898—1899. 

Rabbi J. Leonard Levy. 

1. The First Doubt. 

3. 44 What Will People Say ? ” 

5. The Basis of Matrimony. 

7. The Rivals. 

9. A Child’s Blessing. 

11. The Dawn of the New Bra. 

13. Nursery Rhymes and Superstitions. 

15. Good Literature. 

17. The Tessons of History. 

19. The Struggle for Liberty. 

22. What Art May Do. 

23. The Tost Paradise. 

25. The Risen Jew (or Paradise Regained.) 
27. Nature as a Teacher. 

29. The Drama, 
the Rich. 


SERIES XI. 1897—1898. 


Rabbi Jos. Krauskopf, D. D. 

1. A wise Question is the Half of Knowledge 

5. Good to be Great — Great to be Good. 

3. 44 Woe, if all men speak well of you.” 

7. 44 Who is God, that I should hear Him ? ” 

9. Noble Impulses are Speechless Prophets. 

(A discussion of the Zionistic Question.) 

11. Laid To Rest. 

13. How to Mourn and Remember our Dead. 

16. Condemned Unheard— the Dreyfus Case. 
j 8. The Martyr-Race. 

20. “Mordecai Sitting in the King’s Gate.” 
2"*. Beating Plowshares into Swords. 

24. 44 Far from the Madding Crowd.” 

26. 44 A Time of War, and a Time of Peace.” 


Rabbi J. Leonard Levy. 

2. Dare the Clergy Tell the Truth ? 

4. Are Our Cities in Danger? 

6. 44 The School for Scandal.” 

8. Where did Religion come from ? 

10. 44 Because Mother told me so.” 

12. “ Weighed in the Balance.” 

14. Custom and Conscience. 

15. Are we Jews? 

17. Unrequited Affection. 

19. Which Sabbath ought we Observe? 

21. What good has Ingersollism done? 
23. What advantage has the Jew ? ” 

25. The Altar at the Hearth. 


/ 


SERIES X. 

Rabbi Jos. Krauskopf, D. D. 

2. The Guard Neither Dies Nor Surrenders. 

4. Thy People shall be my People. 

6. Whoso tilleth his land shall have bread. 

8. The Mote and the Beam. 

10. What has been— shall be again. 

12. The People without a Country. 

13. Uses and Abuses of the Pulpit. 

15. Uses and Abuses of the Press. 

17. Uses and Abuses of the Novel. 

Uses & Abuses of the Stage, (Series 8,No.6) 
19. Woman against Woman. 

21. The Best Preacher— the Heart. 

23. The Best Teacher— Time. 

25. The Best Book — the World. 

27. The Best Friend— God. 


1896—1897. 

Rabbi J. Leonard Levy. 

1. Some Question of the Day. 

3. The Greatest Work Bver Written. 

5. Success and Failure. 

7. Syria and Palestine. 

9. The Most Remarkable Work Bver Written 

11. The Jewish Man. 

14. The Jewish Woman. 

16. The Jewish Youth. 

18. Is Judaism Catholic ? 

20. Songs without Words. 

22. Anti-Semitism, its Cause and Cure. 

24. 44 My God, my God, why hast Thou for- 
saken me?” 

26. See that the Republic receive no Harm. 


28. Ten Seasons of Sunday Lectures. 


Sunday Lectures by Rabbis Krauskopf and Levy. 

SERIES IX. 1895—1896. 


Rabbi Jos. Krauskopf, D. D. 

2. Ethics or Religion ? 

3. Faith with Reason. 

5. ( Wherein Israel has Failed 

7. -< Wherein Christians have Failed 

9. (How Both Might Succeed Together. 

11. The Place of Prayer in ihe Service. 

13. The Place of Music in the Service. 

15. The Place of Ceremony in the Service. 

17. No Eight but has its shadow. * 

19. Tolstoi, the Apostle of Russia. 

22. Jewish Theology — Rev. Dr. Silverman. 

24. Jewish Ethics — Rev. Dr. Silverman. 

25. Chains Broken— But not yet Off. 

27. The National Council of Jewish Women. 

29. The Three Theological Dogmas of Juda- 
ism— Rev, Dr. I. M. Wise. 


Rabbi J. Leonard Levy. 

2. The New Jew. 

4. Put Yourself in his Place. 

6. Home. 

8. A Pilgrim’s Journey to Mt. Zion. 

10. Modern Society. 

12. America and England. 

14. Our Girls and Boys. 

16. Orthodox Saints and Reform Sinners. 

18. The Church and the State. 

20. Being Dead, They Yet Speak. 

21. The Radical’s Appeal. 

23. At the Grave of Jesus. 

26. Overcoming Obstacles. 

28. A common-Sense View of Religion. 


SERIES VIII. 

Rabbi Jos. Krauskopf, D. D. 

2. My Creed. 

4. How Not to Help the Poor. 

6. The Stage as a Pulpit. 

8. The Pulpit as a Stage. 

10. Religion in the Public Schools. 

12. *• Hope Deferred Maketh the Heart Sick ” 
14. “ Physician, Heal Thyself.” 

16. Post-Mortem Praise. 

18. The Better For Our Enemies. 

20. The Worse For Our Friends. 

22. Nearer my God to Thee. 

24. Vicious Virtues. 

26. Israel’s Faith is Israel’s FatefMartyrs’ Day 
28. The Israelite as a Husbandman. 

30. Peace on Earth, and Goodwill toward Man 

31. Arms Against a Sea of Troubles. 


SERIES VII. 

Rabbi Jos. Krauskopf, D. D. 

I. Religions Die— Religion Dives. 

3 Orphan-Homes— or Orphans in Homes. 

5. Tne East Rose of Summer. 

7. Social and Religious Barriers. 

9. Comfort ye, Comfort ye, my people. 

I I. Debt to Ancestry — Duty to Posterity. 

13. Only a Jew. 

15. A Mother’s Dove. 

17. A Father’s Dove. 

19. A Wife’s Dove. 

21. A Husband's Dove. 

23. A Sister’s and a Brother’s Dove. 

25. A Child's Dove. 

27. Martyr’s Day: Through Bars to Stars. 

29. Eye for Eye or Turning the Other Cheek. 
31. Summer Religion. 


1894—1895. 

Rabbi J. Leonard Levy. 

1. Masters of the Situation. 

3. The Greatest Diving Wonder. 

5. Criminal Curiosity and Cowardly Con- 
sistency. 

7. Has Satan Conquered God ? 

The Greater Lights. 

9. I. The Eight of the World — Moses and 
the Prophets. 

11. A Night in the Slums. 

13. II. The Eight of the Orient— Confucius. 
15. A Parent’s Blessing. 

17. III. The Eight of Asia— Buddha. 

19. Heroes and Heroines. 

21. IV. The Eight of Iran — Zoroaster. 

23. V. The Eight of Christendom — Jesus. 

25. VI. The Eight of Arabia — Mohammed. 
27. The Holy Catholic Church. 

29. Sunday Newspapers. 


1893— 1894. 

Rabbi J. Leonard, Levy. 

2. Abreast of the Times. 

4. What has the Jew done for the World? 

6. The Believing Sceptic. 

8. Reliance on Science. 

10. The Unity of all Religions. 

12. What is the Messiah ? 

14. The Rule of Right. 

16. Forever and Forever. 

18. Are Women Superstitious? 

20. Are Reform Jews becoming Christians? 

22. The Survival of the Republic. 

24. Reformers, Deformers and Defamers. 

26. An Easter Vision. 

28. After the Winter, Spring. 

30. True Till Death. 


Sunday Lectures by Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, D. D. 


SERIES VI. 

1. Israel’s Debt to the New World. 

2. Past and Present Purpose of the Church. 

3. Ernest Renan. 

4. From Doubt to Trust. 

5. Sinai and Olympus. 

6. One to Sow, Another to Reap. 

7. Brethren at Strife. 

8. Jew Responsible for Jew. 

9. Did Isaiah prophesy Jesus ? 

10. Did the other prophets prophesy Jesus? 

1 1 . Model Dwellings for the Poor. 

12. Under the Dash. 

13. The Dost Chord. 

14. Sabbath for Man— Not Man for Sabbath. 


1892—1893. 

15. Give While You Dive. 

16. The Bubble of Glory. 

17. Compulsory School- Attendance. 

18. Too Date. 

19. A Plea for Home Rule in Ireland. 

20. Too Soon. 

21. Ahlwardt and Bismark. 

22. To-Day. 

23. A Dayman’s Sermon to Preachers. 

24. The Red, White, and Blue. 

25. Blessed are the Peacemakers. 

26. Rabbi and Prophet. — Eevy. 

27. Israel’s Future. — Eevy. 

28. Ethics and Aesthetics. 


Sunday Lectures by Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, D. D. 


SERIES V. 

i. Theologies many— Religion one. 
x. Who wrote the Pentateuch ? 

3. Shylock — the unhistoric Jew. 

4. Nathan, the Wise — the historic Jew. 

5. Darkness before the Dawn. 

6. On the Threshold. 

7. Illusion— (Dreams, Visions, etc.) 

8. Delusion. (Hypnotism, Faith-Cure, etc.) 

9. Hallucination. (Ghosts, Spiritualism, etc.) 
xo. Jesus in the Synagogue. 

1 1. To-Day better than Yesterday. 

12. Wanted — A Rational Religious School. 

13. Civilization’s Debt to Woman. 

14. Civilization’s Duty to Woman. 

15. “ There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends” 


SERIES IV. 

1. Westward — Not Eastward. 

2. The Force in Nature— God. 

3. Gain from Pain. 

4. Pain from Gain. 

5. The Daw of Environment. 

6. American Apathy. 

7. Russia and her Jews. 

8. Among the Immortals. 

9. After Death — What ? 

10. Before Death — What? 

Jewish Converts, Perverts and Dissenters: 

11. I. True and False Converts. 

12. II. Jesus— a Jew, and not a Christian. 

13. III. Paul— The Jew and the Gentile. 

14. IV. Forced Converts. 


1891 — 1892. 

16. Justice — Not Charity. 

17. A Personal Interest Society. 

Glint-Lights on the Ten Commandments. 

18. I. Ancient and Modern Idolatry. 

19. II. The law of Retribution. 

20. III. Reverence to whom Revereucebelongs 

21. IV. Through Labor to Rest. 

22. V. Children’s Rights and Parents’ Wrongs 

23. VI. Slay the Sin, but not the Sinner. 

24. VII. The Sanctity of the Home. 

25. VIII The Noblest Title:“Au Honest Man.” 

26. IX The Highest Fame: A ‘‘ Good Name.” 

27. X. A Plea for Noble Ambition. 

28. The Old in the New and The New in the O’d 


1890—1891. 

15. V. Allured Perverts. 

16. VI. Spinoza — Not a Convert nor a Pervert. 

17. VII. Brilliant Women— Ignoble Perverts 

18. VIII. Borne and Heine — Perverts through 

Christian Intolerance. 

19. IX. Isaac Disraeli — A Pervert through 

Jewish Intolerance. 

20. X. Benj. Disraeli— A Convert, yet a Jew. 

21. XI. The Blank Deaf between the Old and 

the New Testament. 

22. Love as a Corrector. 

23. Eyes they have, and see not. 

24. Ears they have, and hear not. 

25. Tongues they have, and speak not. 

26. The Morning Dawns. 


1. 

2. 

3 - 

4 - 

5 - 
6 . 

7 - 

8 . 

9 - 

10. 

IX. 

X2. 

* 3 - 

14. 


3. 

4. 

5. 

6 . 

7 - 

8 . 

9 - 

10. 


11. 

12. 
13- 
14. 


x. 


2. 

3 - 

4 - 

5 - 
6 . 

7 - 

8 

9 - 

10. 

11. 


SERIES III. 

“ Eppur si Muove ” (And yet she moves). 
Jew Against Jew. 

Possibilities of Youth. 

Possibilities of Age. 

Art as an Educator. 

A Child’s Prayer. 

Nurseries of Crime. 

The Jew as a Patriot. 

Are We Better than the Heathen ? 
Business Integrity. 

How Molehills into Mountains Grow. 
How Mountains into Molehills Dwindle. 
What Love Joins— No Court Sunders. 
Religion in the Laboratory. 


SERIES II. 

Whence, Whither and Why? 

The Voice of the People. 

Uncharitable Charity. 

Wife and Mother. 

Husband and Father. 

Origin and Descent. 

The People of the Book. 

Future Reward and Punishment. 

The Ideal Commonwealth. 

The Puritanic Sabbath. 

EPOCHS IN JUDAISM : 

I. The Mosaic Age. 

II The Prophetic Age. 

III The Messianic Age. 

IV. The Rabbinical Age. 


1889—1890. 

15. Myths in the Old Testament. 

16. Myths in the New Testament 

17. Living for Others. 

18. Heredity. 

19. Is this a Christian Nation? 

20. Purim and Lent 

21. The Tyranny of Fashion. 

22. Religious Unbelievers and Irreligious 

Believers. 

23. War Against War. 

24. Martyr’s Day. 

2i. Native against Foreigner. 

26. Ancient and Modern Saints. 

27. Shifting but not Drifting. 


1888—1889. 

Epochs in Judaism continued : 

15. V. The Kabbalistic Age. 

16. VI. The Mendelssohnian Age. 

17. VII. The Present Age. 

18. Ashes to Ashes or Earth to Earth. 

19. Sanitary Science. 

20. Does Prohibition Prohibit ? 

21. Intermarriage. 

22. Convert your own— Let Jews alone. 

23 The 25th Anniversary of the Cornerstone- 
Laving ot Temple Keneseth Israel. 

24. Abused Benefactors. 

25. A Benefactor Honored Rev Dr I M.Wise) 

26. The Real Saving Trinity. 

27. The Removal of the Leaven. 

28. Deed through Creed. 


SERIES I. 

The Need of the Hour. 

The Theology of the Future. 

The Feast and the Fast. 

Mind and Belief. 

The Conquest of Evil. 

Be Right To-day Though WrongYesterd ay 

( Orthodoxy 

TheThreeFoes of Judaism : < Conservatism 

(Reform 

Judaism and Unitariamsm. 

The Feast of Esther. 


1887—1888. 

12 Judaism and the Ethical Culture Society. 
13. The Chosen People. 

1 1. The H^h^evv and the Atheist. 

15. A11 Eriw of Eighteen Hundred Years 

Corrected. 

16. Par; _.over and Easter. 

Who is Responsible : { Church. 

19. The American and his Holidays. 

20. The Saturday and the Sunday-Sabbath, 


NATIONAL FARM SCHOOL, 

DOYLESTOWN, PA. 


At a meeting of the Board of the National Farm School, the sudden death 
of the Rev. Dr. Isaac M. Wise was announced and received amidst the pro- 
foundest sorrow, and the following Resolutions were adopted and ordered to 
be communicated to the stricken family : 

Resolved , That the Board of the National Farm School share with the rest 
of American Israel in the irreparable loss the family and the Nation have sus- 
tained in the death of the noble leader and champion of Reform Judaism in 
America, and of the wise and brave advocate of every cause tending to further 
the interests of Judaism and humanity. 

Resolved , That the Board of the National Farm School especially mourns 
in the death of the Rev. Dr. Isaac M. Wise, one of the earliest supporters of the 
cause of promoting agriculture among Jews, one who, even in his very 
advanced age, made a pilgrimage from Cincinnati to the National Farm School, 
to dedicate its flag-pole and unfurl the American Flag, and consecrate both to 
useful citizenship and honorable patriotism. 

Resolved , That the flag on the grounds of the National Farm School be 
lowered to half-mast for a period of one month, and that a Memorial Tree, 
suitably inscribed, be planted on the grounds on Arbor Day, amidst appropriate 
services, by the students of the school. 

Resolved, That a copy of these Resolutions be presented to the family of 
the deceased and published in “ The American Israelite ” of Cincinnati, “ The 
Jewish Exponent ” and “The Weekly Bulletin” of Philadelphia, and recorded 
on the minutes of the Institution. 

By order of the Board of Directors, 

JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF, President. 
HARRY C. HOCHSTADTER, Secretary, 


March 27th, 1900, 



"ft#-; 



